


The Space In Between

by Phoebe_Hunter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dreams, M/M, Possession, References to Chris Argent/Victoria Argent, References to Past Chris Argent/Peter Hale, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2694512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Hunter/pseuds/Phoebe_Hunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia isn't the only one who dreams about Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space In Between

**Author's Note:**

> This is...a bit weird. It was one of those fics which kept distracting me from other things I should have been writing, so I've been playing around with it for a while and it's now as finished as it's going to get. I actually didn't know what to put in the tags (or the warnings) other than "this is a bit weird" or possible "this sort of takes place in Peter Hale's head which should really tell you all you need to know about it". 
> 
> The first half takes place after Season 2, the second half after Season 4. There is sex and violence involved. And talking. Probably too much talking. I can't help but write dialogue for these two. 
> 
> As to other warnings: there are references to Chris Argent (at the age he is now) sexing up Peter while Peter looks eighteen again. If that is going to squick you, you've been warned. Plus a sex scene where Peter might not be entirely Peter. So, a dub-con warning is probably appropriate. There is also a relatively graphic discussion of the Hale Fire.
> 
> This fic was loosely inspired by the song "The Space In Between" by How To Destroy Angels, and particularly these lyrics: 
> 
> _Arms entwined in a final pose  
>  Narrative drawing to a close  
> Still remain the things we couldn't kill  
> In your eyes, I can see it still  
> _
> 
> Con-crit is always welcome. Kudos is much appreciated and comments are cherished. Apologies for any grammatical atrocities, spelling errors or terrible plot holes I have missed.

“Hello, Christopher.” The snow crunches under Peter’s bare feet as he walks beside Chris, hands in his pockets. Ash clings to his eyelashes and there are grey smudges on his wrists and dark stains under his blue eyes. His untrimmed hair curls around the back of his neck. 

  The whiteness unfolding beneath Chris’ boots looks like snow, but Chris isn’t cold and when he looks up there’s no sky above them, only heavy beams and exposed wires.

 “You’re dead.”

 “Is that any way to greet an old friend?” Peter bumps their shoulders together in reproof. He smells of damp leaves and smoke; the ripe earthiness of autumn shot through with faint, rotting sweetness.     

 “This is a dream,” Chris observes.

 “Do you dream about me often?” There’s a familiar hint of laughter in Peter’s voice. They’re walking towards something , visible only because its shadow stretches grey against the unending whiteness. “It’s nice to know I haven’t been forgotten.”

 “Get out of my head, Peter.”

 Peter glances across. “How do you know you’re not in mine?”

 “You’re dead.”

 “So you’ve said.”

 They come upon the tree quickly. Its white branches curve upward in piteous appeal, stretching desperate fingers towards the fluorescent bulb dangling from the ceiling. A breeze ruffles Peter’s hair but leaves the snow untouched.  

 Peter sets a hand against the trunk and the bark ripples and twines around his fingers. “Why are you here, Christopher?” Peter turns, and the bark curves around his arms and thighs, binding him to the trunk. “What do you want from me now?” Peter doesn’t flinch, even  as a branch blossoms from his chest in a sudden welter of gore and splintered bone.

 “Well?” Peter says, through a mouthful of blood. “What do you want from me now?”

 -

 “I told you to get out of my head, Peter.” The snow is in piles, heaped high to reveal the dirty concrete floor. There’s a rope swing affixed to one of the branches of the oak tree and Peter’s sitting in it, swinging gently back and forth.

 “Do you remember the swing, Christopher?”

 Kate’s pigtails flying as she demanded he push her higher, higher, higher. Laura leaping off into the air and turning a somersault before she landed. The smell of summer and Peter’s cigarettes.

 “What do you want, Peter?” The words echo, falling between them like an accusation.

Peter comes to his feet. “Why do you always assume I  _want_  something?” He takes a step, and another, until Chris can see the flecks of grey in his blue eyes and the ash that still speckles his eyelashes. He reaches up to brush Chris’ cheek and Chris tenses.

“Would you prefer this?” Chris blinks and Peter looks eighteen again, all angles and cheekbones, his shaggy hair falling into his eyes.

“Not really.”

 Peter laughs, free and wild and uninhibited. It’s the laugh he saved for Chris; the laugh that made Chris appreciate that intimacy wasn’t the way they touched or the way Peter’s lips felt against his, it was the way Peter would slide his eyes to Chris’ and let his mouth twitch in mirth, the way he’d look for Chris before he’d look for anyone else in a room.

 “Does it interfere with your ability to compartmentalise?”

 Peter darts in, quick as a snake, and the brush of his lips against Chris’ burns.  

 -

 There are four walls but they can walk and walk and never have to turn. The snow is melting into still, black pools. When Chris looks back at the trail of footprints behind them Peter’s are rimmed in red.

 “You’re bleeding,” Chris says.

 Peter looks down. “You think I’m dead. If you’re right about that, a little bit of blood is the least of my problems.”

 “They set you on fire.”

 “Don’t think I don’t appreciate the irony.” Peter kicks up the snow with his bare toes. He looks so young, so petulant, so  _Peter_ , that Chris can’t suppress a chuckle.

 “I knew I’d win you over,” Peter says. “I always do.”

 “You always did,” Chris corrects, because saying anything else would make him a liar.

 Peter’s fingers brush Chris’ wrist, just for a moment. The sort of light, casual touch that could have been accidental. But Peter has never done anything by accident.

 “Things have changed,” Chris says.

 “They have, haven’t they? You’re married. I’m dead.” Peter pauses, brow furrowing. “I’m not sure which of those would be the greatest impediment for you, to be honest. I know what you’re like about vows.” Peter’s voice is light, but there’s a bite to it like the winter ice in an autumn breeze.

 -

 “It must be so delightful to have Gerard home,” Peter says. There’s a vicious twist to his smile. “Lovely for Allison to spend some time with her grandfather.”

 The oak tree is shedding tiny white leaves. They’re sitting beneath it, Peter with his back against the trunk, legs crossed. 

 “You’ve got no right to speak about Allison.”

 “Please, Christopher. Do you really think I would have killed her?” Peter rolls his eyes.

 “Why would I believe anything else?”

 Peter meets Chris’ gaze, lips twisting into something that isn’t a smile. Too many teeth.

 “Do you know why I was burned so badly, Christopher?” Peter asks. “Did you ever wonder?”

 There are too many answers to that question and none of them are quite true.

 “They were all there. Almost my whole pack. No matter how much I wanted to run, I couldn’t leave them. The protective instinct was too strong.” Peter’s tone is casual, conversational. “My nieces and nephews, all of them younger than your precious Allison. Amelia had just turned five. Peter – they named him after me, you know – was seven.” Peter took a step closer. “My sister, my mother…I listened to them trying to comfort the children, telling them to be brave. That it would be all right. And then I listened to them burn. It takes longer than you’d expect for a werewolf to burn. The body trying to heal itself, failing, succumbing.”  

 The bulb above them flickers. Chris can smell smoke.

 “Can you imagine, Christopher, what Gerard would have done if it had been your precious family that had burned? Would it have mattered which of us had done it?”

 They both know the answer to that.

 “Do you know what’s funny?” Peter asks, and when he reaches out to lay a hand against Chris’ cheek Chris can’t move away. “Even after all these years, even half out of my mind, I wouldn’t have killed her.” Peter’s voice roughens and it’s claws against Chris’ cheek instead of fingers. “Oh, I wanted to. I wanted to rip her pretty little throat straight out.” Peter leans forward, lips a breath away from Chris’. “But I couldn’t have hurt you like that.”

 Peter’s rakes his fingers downwards and Chris jerks backwards, raising a hand to his cheek. It comes away bloody.

Peter laughs like broken glass. His breath is cold against Chris’ face. “Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent,” he murmurs, raising Chris’ bloody hand to his lips.

 -

 Peter kisses him for the first time up against the oak tree, just like when they were sixteen. He tasted of whisky and cigarettes then, and Chris can still remember the way the soft leather of Peter’s jacket felt under Chris’ fingers, the spark of electricity when he’d laid his hands against Peter’s bare chest for the first time. Peter looks up at Chris through lowered lashes, still looking eighteen, his teeth set against his bottom lip, and when Chris shoves him back against the tree and slams their mouths together Peter smiles against Chris’ lips.   

 Fucking Peter isn’t the same in the dreams; he is insubstantial, somehow, a fragile concoction of half-imagined skin and bones. He fades when Chris doesn’t concentrate. Peter’s teeth sink into Chris’ shoulder and Chris feels nothing, not the sting of teeth, not the lash of Peter’s tongue.

 Peter laughs, though, and it echoes until Chris can feel it in his bones.

 Chris’ fingers dig into Peter’s hips as Peter arches above him, baring the column of his throat. Peter’s never bruised before, but this time when Chris moves his hands he can see the purpling marks of his fingers. He digs his nails into Peter’s thighs, harder than he should, and Peter whispers something that might be Chris’ name.  

 Afterwards, Peter rests his head on Chris’ chest, his fingers twined with Chris’.

 “Don’t pretend you don’t miss this,” he says, tracing lazy fingers over Chris’ scars.

 “I love Victoria.”

 Peter picks up a handful of snow and it runs through his fingers like sand, like stardust. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

-

 The room is empty, the snow almost gone. There’s concrete under Chris’ feet and a scattering of broken twigs. The lights gutter as he reaches out to touch the burnt bark of the oak tree.

 Something glitters as the lights flicker on again and Chris reaches out and catches a long strand of red hair between his fingers.

 -

There’s no snow anymore. Chris walks through drifts of ash instead, his booted feet stirring up puffs of airy grey. The tree is still blackened and dead, the rope swing a pile of mouldering rope beside it. There’s a door in the trunk with an ornate golden handle and an eye carved into the wood above it.

 “Don’t touch that,” Peter’s voice cracks like a gunshot. He steps out from behind the trunk, twirling a heavy iron key between his fingers.

 Chris’ hand stills, a hair away from the handle. “Why not?”

“You never know what you might let in.” The shadows under Peter’s eyes look like bruises. His chest is bare and he has a hand pressed to his torso, blood oozing from between his fingers. Chris feels an echo of remembered pain, can taste the metallic bite of blood in his mouth again for a moment.

 “Just like yours. Romantic, isn’t it?” Peter slips the key into his pocket and leans back against the trunk. “And I don’t even have Captain America to patch me up.”

 “Why did you do it?”

 “Why did I do what? Stab you? Try to kill Scott? Or work with Kate?” Peter’s smile is wicked. “Are you jealous, Christopher?” Peter’s fingers brush Chris’ shoulder as he leans in, teeth catching Chris’ earlobe. “Do you want to know whether I fucked her?”

 Peter catches Chris’ fist before it can hit his jaw. “Now now,” Peter says, forcing Chris' arm back to his side. “It’s not like you to hit a wounded man.”

 “We should have killed you,” Chris says.

 Peter chuckles. “But then who would you have left?”

 -

 There’s a crack running from the base of the oak to one corner of the room. Chris steps from one side of it to the other. Peter's leaning against the trunk of the tree, next to the golden door, looking at the fissure. The wound on his torso has faded to an angry, raw scar.

 “Why am I here?” Chris doesn't really expect an answer. He's not sure Peter even has an answer, not really, or that he'd want to know it if Peter did. The words tease the corners of his consciousness like pulled threads; _anchor, tether; fetter._

 Peter shrugs. “Perhaps I just like the company.”

 “Last time I was here you were dead.”

 “Which begs an interesting question, doesn’t it?” Peter folds himself down to a sitting position, legs extended. The iron key appears again between his fingers and he flicks it from hand to hand as Chris approaches the door.

 The door handle rattles and Peter flinches.

 “What’s out there?” _Or in there._

 “Let’s just say I think it would be better for everyone if it didn’t get in.” 

 “Don’t play games, Peter.” Chris’ voice is a little too sharp.

 Peter chuckles, pillowing his arms behind his head. “You still wonder, don’t you? Whether it was all just a game to me? Whether I meant it when I said…”

 Chris cuts him off. “I don’t care.”

 “Liar.” 

 Peter’s foot hooks around Chris’ ankle and he sweeps Chris feet out from under him. Chris hits the ground and rolls, but before he can come back to his feet Peter’s hands are on his wrists and Peter’s weight is bearing him down.

 “Would it make you feel better, Christopher, if I told you how much I loved you back then?” There’s no tenderness in Peter’s face. “How much I wanted you?” One of Peter’s thumbs hooks in the waistband of Chris’ jeans. Chris could move his head and close the distance between their lips.  “How much I would have given up for you?” Peter’s other hand slides up to cradle Chris’ cheek.

 “You’ve never cared about anyone except yourself.”

 Peter sighs. “Don’t tell me things you don’t believe, Christopher. I can hear your heart beating. Or maybe,” Peter’s hand drifts down to brush the side of Chris’ throat, “maybe there’s another reason for that.” 

 -

 Chris faces Peter across the interrogation table. There’s a gun resting between Chris’ hands. Chris should be able to see his own reflection in the mirrored glass behind Peter but all he can see is shadows, swirling and eddying.  

  “If I killed you here would you die?” It’s not the question Chris meant to ask.  

 “Shall we find out?” Peter’s voice is playful. He stands, chair screeching on the tiles, and taps the mirrored glass with a claw. It shatters with a sigh. The golden door is there again, shining in the dim light. Glass crunches under Peter’s feet as he paces the length of the room. He watches the door as he walks.

 "What are you so afraid of?" Chris asks.

 Peter stops. "I haven't been afraid of anything in twenty years." His voice is soft. He looks at Chris the same way he looks at the door; something of the hunter and the hunted in his eyes.

Chris isn't sure when he stood, when he crossed the room, but his fingers are on Peter's wrists. Peter looks at him, tilting his head, and part of Chris wishes he could rip Peter's face straight off and dig the truth out with his nails. See if there's anything behind those eyes but smoke and mirrors.

Chris doesn’t feel the broken glass under his back as they hit the floor, doesn't feel the stinging cuts as Peter pins his wrists above his head. Peter's teeth split his lip and he feels that; feels the sting of pain and tastes the blood in their fused mouths.

 -

 They're lying in the woods on a soft carpet of autumn leaves and discarded clothing. Peter's hands are in Chris' hair, their limbs entangled, and Peter's mouth is hot and demanding against Chris'. Chris slides his hands down Peter's back, feeling the shift of Peter's muscles and the heat of his skin, and Peter moans into Chris' mouth. There's something more than desire between them; a hollow, shivering desperation that has Chris digging his nails into Peter's back as Peter's teeth catch Chris' lower lip. 

 Peter's mouth trails down to Chris' neck and Chris arches his back as Peter's tongue flicks against his collarbone. Peter's knee is between Chris' leg and Chris shudders as Peter follows his tongue with his teeth, scrambling for purchase against…against…

 Chris' fingers are resting against something cool and hard. He turns his head and looks straight into the carved eye above the golden door.

 "Peter," he says. But if Peter can hear him he gives no sign of it; his thumbs sliding into the waistband of Chris' jeans.  Chris' hips buck as Peter's teeth catch the button and pull it open, Peter's breath hot against his skin.

 "Peter," Chris tries to pull his hand away from the door but his fingers stick fast.

The handle pulses under his hand as Peter presses a kiss to Chris' hip, glancing up at Chris from under his lashes. The heat in his eyes makes Chris shiver. But there is something else there, too. Or something missing.

 "Peter!" Chris shoves Peter as hard as he can and Peter reels backwards, eyes glazed, his fingers going to his forehead. Blood trickles from beneath hem, falling in black droplets onto Peter's chest.

 "Peter?"

 Peter's eyes snap open. His mouth curves into a smile that is not Peter's smile at all. "Not precisely."

 "Then who the hell are you?"

 A sigh, and there are still fingers on Chris' hips. "I could tell you. But it's easier if I just show you."

 -

The ground rumbles and bucks beneath Chris’ feet. Fissures run from the base of the oak, spewing white smoke into the air. Autumn leaves rain from the ceiling and the air is thick and sticky with the smell of rotting fruit. The door in the trunk is shining golden and trembling as the tree shudders and moves.

 “Peter?”

Peter appears from the shadows and, for a moment, Chris can see threads of darkness licking at his ankles, his wrists, his throat. “You should leave, Christopher,” Peter says. “I have a feeling they’re going to need you.” There are bruises on his arms and the veins stand out, stark and blue.

"What's happening?"

Peter's mouth twitches, his eyebrows lifting. "You can't guess?"

“Peter.” Chris catches Peter’s hand in his and Peter freezes. "What's happening to you?"

Peter disentangles their fingers gently. “Why, Christopher," he says. "I didn’t know you cared."

 

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> I know. Weird, right?


End file.
